Consolidating some things

[defaude]

Hey everyone! I just arrived here at this repo and would love to contribute a bit :)

Looking at the code organisation and the test setup, it's rather confusing for newcomers right now. Should we discuss those cross-cutting things a bit and then decide the direction going forward? Here's a few ideas - feedback very much welcome:

Ideas

Code structure: Maybe we could define a "template" for code/algorithm files that new code should follow and/or existing code could be migrated towards. Some things to keep in mind, though:

• Implementation files (modules?) should adhere to a common structure (e.g. ESM)
• Implementation code should be stateless (i.e. it should be possible to call the implementation multiple times without side effects between test runs)
• Algorithm implementation should refrain from outputting to the console
• ... (ideas welcome)

Chores: Automatically running tests and code style checks in the CI is a bit funky right now ;) Mostly due to the fact that there's both Jest and doctest in the mix, of course. However, there's more to do: npm dependencies are outdated, Node.js will have v16 as LTS version starting this October, etc. etc. etc.

Full switch to ESM: Add "type": "module" to our root package.json.

Addressed already:

#742

Test setup: There should be just one solution for testing. Do we want to use doctest going forward? Or do we want to use Jest? But keeping both is a source of confusion and will eventually lead to degrading code quality / clarity. (This is basically the attempt to revive the discussion in #142 even though I'd prefer and strongly recommend Jest)

[trasherdk]

Maybe cleaning out unused dependencies from package.json ?
As this thing does not have or need a runtime environment, all used dependencies should be in devDependencies ?
Maybe adding husky and a pre-commit hook, running standard --fix . could lower the noise ?

[defaude]

That sounds like a nice idea! 👍

Maybe we could even get rid of the job that auto-updates the directory markdown file on a pre-commit basis? (hint, hint: I just improved that one with 2dc8ead...5283a41 but maybe it's even nicer to have it run as a pre-commit hook)

[raklaptudirm]

@cclauss

[cclauss]

An example of this template would be good to see and would spark deeper conversation. I am not sure that idempotency is required for all algorithms. Some of these ideas could enhance the notions expressed in...
https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/Javascript/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#what-is-an-algorithm

[raklaptudirm]

Implementation files (modules?) should adhere to a common structure (e.g. ESM

Currently, this repository encourages ESM. If you find files which obey other module systems, please create a list of them to be fixed.

Implementation code should be stateless (i.e. it should be possible to call the implementation multiple times without side effects between test runs)

Again, if you find algorithms with state, create a list in this issue.

Algorithm implementation should refrain from outputting to the console

Same as above.

[raklaptudirm]

Test setup: There should be just one solution for testing. Do we want to use doctest going forward? Or do we want to use Jest? But keeping both is a source of confusion and will eventually lead to degrading code quality / clarity. (This is basically the attempt to revive the discussion in #142 even though I'd prefer and strongly recommend Jest)

We do have testing problems because doctest does not provide a mechanism to ignore files. Removing them may be a good idea.

[raklaptudirm]

We can also add codespell as a github action for checking spellings.

[defaude]

We do have testing problems because doctest does not provide a mechanism to ignore files. Removing them may be a good idea.

So you're saying all tests should be written in Jest? (Which I'd totally vote for)

[cclauss]

I am not a fan of removing tests unless we are replacing them with something equivalent if not better. Let's make sure that we have more tests, not fewer tests.

Issues related to jest... https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/Javascript/search?q=jest&type=issues

[raklaptudirm]

@cclauss We are removing only the doctests, and keeping all the jest ones. How does that sound?

[defaude]

Agreed. Removing tests is the wrong thing to do. We should migrate doctests to Jest instead!